Morning journal and courier., 1887-03-02
MILLIONS OF FUR SEALS.
Value of Our Alaskan IsIands-IRtel estiHg Facts About Them
 NIor- ,.l- nr..il,II


 esting Facts About Them
 From the New York Tribunel
 The Pribylov Islands, St. Paul and St.
 George, lie in the heart of Behring's Sea, about two hundred miles from any other land They are about thirty miles apart, small, wrapped in almost continuous fogs, difficult of approach on account of winds and currents, and so ineonspicuous that they long eluded discovery; even now vessels of ten hover ground them for days without be- ing able to find them. In the last century
 the Russian fur hunters were much puzzled to track the seals which passed through the channels of the Aleutian chain to their
 breeding places. They spent eighteen years in the search; at last one of their sailors,
 Pribylov, after securing Behring's Sea for three summers, ran against St. George in fog and heard the air tremble with the roar of the seals. This was one hundred years
 ago; and ever since Pribylov's discovery the two little islands have been the chief seal hunting grounds of the world. They were included in the sale of Alaska to the United States, and are now leased by our govern ment to the Alaska Commercial company, which has a monopoly of the catch under the regulations and supervisions of the Secretary of the Treasury. Probably there is no place
 
 be studied so thoroughly as on the Pnbylov Islands It was fortunate, therefore, that a competent naturalist like MT. Elliott under took the arduous duty of remaining at the rock cries summer and winter, watching the animals at all seasons. He went out at the suggestion of Professor T. F. Baird in the | summer of 1872, stayed on St. Paul Island through the following winter and repeated his visits in 1874 and 1876. The result is admirable treatise on the fur-seal, crowded with fresh information and illustrated with original drawings which, we may remark in passing, are far more successful than the authors crude sketches of landscape and people. A years residence at the seal-rook- cries is by no means holiday experience, Besides the discomfort of life in an atmos- phere of inconceivable stenehes, the adven- turous observer has to bear the rigors of singularly severe climate. There are only two seasons, short, foggy summer, with an average temperature of forty-six or fifty de- grees in the warmest month, and winter of furious gales, laden with snow and sleet, when it is rare that the stoutest man can walk abroad. The average temperature is not very: low; but nobody can breast the wind. Mir. Elliott, watching every chance to creep out between storms, was able to leave the house only three times during a whole winter.
 Extraordinary statements have been made about the number of seals on these islands IaS1i1Alatoo AuAuluS uP IAtO tuo are of no value, for few persons have any def- nite idea what million is. MT. Elliott,
 however, succeeded in making something like genuine calculation, and his method
 was ingenious enough to be described in de- tail. The seals are not scattered over the is- lands, but they frequent certain well defined breeding places where the confguration of the coast gives them access from the sea. Now MT. Elliott observed the curious fact that they distribute themselves over these grounds with almost perfect regularity. The
 number of seals on any square rod of ground
 is always about the same as the number on
 every other square rod. By measuring all the breeding grounds therefore, and count l ing the seals on given area at the height of
 the season-July 10 to 20-he reached a req
 sonable approximation to the total number,
 which he places at the imposing figure of | four million seven hundred thousand. The annual increase of this vast multitude is ] about five hundred thousand; and after 1 making liberal allowance for the destruc-
 ton of young pups by sharks and other nat l ural enemies, it is almost certain that the
 number which reach the age of reproduction
 is considerably in excess of the limit of one
 hundred thousand, to which the yearly catch of the Alaska Commercial company is re-